Designed from the ground up to be an affordable and secure storage array, the 5C 5-Bay USB 3.0 Type-C Enclosure from Drobo is equipped with five 3.5" SATA drive bays that support SATA III 6 Gb/s and SATA II 3 Gb/s drives. Using separately sold drive carriers, the 5C will also support 2.5" hard drives and SSDs. The Drobo 5C distinguishes itself from the other members of the Drobo "5" series through its single USB 3.0 Type-C port, which operates with data transfer speeds of up to 5 Gb/s.

To facilitate data protection, Drobo's BeyondRAID technology enables single or dual-drive redundancy. If there are any empty drive bays, BeyondRAID allows additional drives to be inserted into the array, where they would be automatically configured. If all drive bays are occupied, simply replace the smallest capacity drive with a larger one and BeyondRAID will handle the rest. BeyondRAID is also what allows drives of varying capacities to work in the same unit, which helps enable future expansion as larger drives become available.

Additional data protection is provided by the included rechargeable battery, which helps protect data stored in the 5C's memory or cache. If there were to be a sudden power loss, the battery allows the Drobo to stay powered long enough for the cached data to be written to an included internal SSD. Cooling is provided by a 120mm variable-speed fan and once installed, the hard drives can be configured to spin down when they're not in use, helping to further reduce noise and energy. Also, the LEDs can be dimmed to reduce light pollution when working in sensitive environments. The Drobo 5C is compatible with both Windows and Mac, including APFS/macOS High Sierra, and also includes a 5.9' USB 3.0 Type-C to Type-A cable, a 100-240 VAC power supply that runs at 50-60 Hz, and a 9.2' power cord. Protection is provided by a limited 1-year warranty within the US or outside the EU, or a limited 2-year warranty within the EU, as well as 90 days of business hour tech support. Using the 1 or 3-year DroboCare warranty renewals, your Drobo 5C is eligible for up to 5 years of coverage.

General Features

Protection From Drive Failure

The Drobo 5C protects your data from a single or dual hard drive failures. In the case of a drive failure, Drobo will immediately rebuild data using the remaining available space. In the background, Drobo performs "data scrubbing and self-healing," which means it validates your data and repairs any inconsistencies.

Power Protecting Your Critical Data

Drobo doesn't just protect against drive failures, but also from potential data loss after a power outage. The Drobo 5C includes advanced battery backup technology that helps protects data in memory or cache. During a sudden power loss, Drobo protects in-progress operations by saving them to an internal SSD. The operations are resumed and written to the disks once power is restored. This helps ensure important information is safe and sound. The battery recharges itself and is designed to last for the life of your Drobo.

Economical Capacity Expansion

The Drobo 5C supports volume sizes up to 64TB and allows for expansion into this size. You can grow in to this, and provide only the capacity you need today. When more storage space is needed, simply add another drive, or replace a drive with a larger one. Drobo allows you to mix and match hard drives of virtually any size or brand. This empowers you to buy suitable drives when you need more space, instead of paying today for capacity you will not need until the future.

Second Volume for Backups or Full Disk Encryption

The Drobo 5C allows for a second, fixed volume size and limits the amount of storage space you specify for the second volume. The rest of the capacity is available for storing other files.

Two Ways to Use a Second Volume:
1. Apple's Time Machine: Specify the maximum size Time Machine can use for its versioned backups. This solves the problem of Time Machine slowly consuming all space on a drive.
2. Encrypted Hard Drive: Some information requires additional protection. A second volume
can create an encrypted disk using Windows and OS X / macOS tools. Sensitive data is
protected with a password. Access to sensitive data is password protected.

Simple Setup - No Tools Needed

With the Drobo 5C, 3.5" hard drives slide right into the drive bays. No metal drive carriers or assembly screws are necessary, unless 2.5" drives are being used. The Drobo chassis is constructed of metal and the magnetic front cover is easy to install or remove.

As Easy as Reading a Traffic Light

Lights on the front show alerts of what's happening, making monitoring your Drobo 5C as easy as reading a traffic light. Green, yellow, or red lights show the drive status, and each blue LED light along the bottom represents 10% utilization, showing how much capacity is consumed. Unsure of what the lights mean? Simply take off the magnetic cover and all the information can be found on the back:

"Actions Required" Indicators
- Green: No action needed, system is healthy
- Solid Yellow: Add or upsize a drive here soon, the Drobo is over 85% full
- Blinking Green and Yellow: Don't remove any drives, operate normally. Drobo is optimizing the data layout. You can still perform read and write operations during optimization
- Solid Red: Add or upsize a drive here now
- Blinking Red: Replace this drive immediately, as it has failed. Depending on the capacity of your Drobo 5C, your data could be at risk until you replace this drive

UPC: 816604020005

In the Box

Drobo 5C 5-Bay USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C Enclosure

5.9' / 1.8m USB 3.0 Type-C to Type-A Cable

9.2' / 2.8m Power Cord

90 Days of Business Hour Tech Support

Limited 1-Year Warranty (No Advanced Replacement) in the US or Outside the EU

Rated 1 out of
5 by
Craig from
If you own a Mac, DO NOT BUY THISI read the bad reviews and decided to ignore them and purchase this Drobo anyway. Right out of the box it was acting up. First it wouldn't recognize the USB type-c cable so I bought a new one and it wouldn't recognize that one either until I turned the cable upside down (yes, really). Then on day two I noticed that Time Machine wasn't backing up. The Drobo had stopped mounting on my Mac. Tech support suggested that I buy Disk Warrior. Seriously?! They were suggesting that I buy DW for a brand new product and drives?? I told them to close the ticket and I was sending the Drobo and drives back. This company will never get my dollars again.

Date published: 2017-12-11

Rated 4 out of
5 by
kc5cbt from
Seems to work great, but load big drivesI purchased this to backup 3 tb of photo and video files. Seems to work great and the interface is great. It is a well thought out product and built well. When I 1st got it, I loaded it with drives I had sitting around. Two 500gb drives, and a 1tb drive. I was surprised at how little space was available. But, makes sense when you think about what it is doing, allowing any drive to fail and there still be good data. So, it was planning for my largest drive to fail. I later installed two 4TB drives, two 2TB drives and now it seems much happier. I think I have almost 6TB of space for backup with single drive redundancy.

Date published: 2017-01-11

Rated 5 out of
5 by
Chris B. from
Just what I neededI have a 2nd Gen Drobo which is still working fine but I wanted something a little faster with more capacity, so this is actually an upgrade to my previous unit. Migration was effortless. Dismount the old one, pop the drives out, put them in the new one, plug it in. I use this for HD video recordings on my Mac mini using eyeTV and a USB TV tuner, along with storing my iTunes, Photos library, games and anything else big. Speed is much better but now limited to my old Mac's USB, so now just waiting on Apple to release a new model. Also need to get a USB hub as previous Drobo was Firewire, and I'm now out of USB ports with the Drobo, TV Tuner and game controllers.

Date published: 2017-05-15

Rated 2 out of
5 by
Jan from
Does not off the peace of mind you're looking forSince buying this a few months ago, I have spent dozens of hours troubleshooting problems with the unit. Most often from it not mounting or not appearing on the USB bus at all. Other times issues with it stalling during boot up. It's always been possible to gradually coax it back to life so far, but typically the process is completely arbitrary and far more complex than any official instructions indicate. Moreover, this has been without any disk issues; I dread to think how painful recovery would be. My intention buying it was to use it as a primary backup, but I find I cannot trust it for this purpose. I hoped it would offer peace of mind for my data, instead it constantly fails in new and unpredictable ways.

Date published: 2017-12-10

Rated 1 out of
5 by
Eric from
Drobo BSI own 10 older Drobos. Two failed and I had to deal with returns. Why only a 1 year warranty in N. America yet Europe 2 years. The Drobos read/write is so sloooow. I have a couple of Sans Digital TowerRaid boxes that read/write 10X faster than Drobo's. My Drobo's have usb or firewire interface. The firewire is useless the usb3 flaky so they all run on usb2. The Sans Digital have USB3 or eSata. Both work no problem. No Sans Digital has failed yet. Conclusion: (Don't even think of buying a Drobo). Thank You

Date published: 2018-01-07

Rated 2 out of
5 by
Anonymous from
Stopped Mounting/Data CorruptedAfter just three days of owning this device, my Drobo 5C stopped mounting, and it looks like it is because my data had somehow become corrupted. Despite all indicator lights showing healthy drives and only at 30% capacity, I can't access my Drobo however, Drobo Dashboard communicates with it perfectly still. I know how to take care of these devices and understand what goes into taking care of them properly. With that, there is nothing that I can think of that I did personally that would have caused this. Also, I have been able to rule out certain things that typically cause this type of situation (i.e power outage/surge, interrupted data transfer, overheating, etc) that could have caused this. Currently still investigating with Drobo support team.

Date published: 2017-03-28

Rated 5 out of
5 by
Anonymous from
YesI had 4 external drives set up as two mirrored units. Two failed, lucky for me it was one from each mirror unit. I had read a lot of reviews and decided to try the 5C 5-bay. It was very easy to setup. The transfer speed is 2-4 times faster then the 4 external units. So far I feel this is a great solution for me.

Date published: 2016-11-17

Rated 3 out of
5 by
Anonymous from
Great product, but questionable customer service.The Drobo 5C looks exactly the same as the 5N or previous FS models. Well build, looks good and the hdd drive trays + magnet front case are awesome. Sadly it looks like my unit is defective since it reboots very often. I'm in contact with Drobo and I hope to find a solution quickly. Sadly I've had bad experience in the past with Drobo and I hope it will be better this time.